The first play of the game set the tone of the game. Vanderbilt traveled to Austin, Texas in search of another huge win, but it took 11 seconds for all the hope and energy it had pregame to turn into concern.
After deferring possession to the second half, Texas quarterback Arch Manning took the first snap of the game, threw a backward pass to his wide receiver Ryan Wingo. Wingo then made Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson miss on a tackle, followed his blockers and ran 75 yards to the end zone for a touchdown. Instantly, Vanderbilt was down 7-0 and took a punch right to the face.
But that was just the beginning of what was to come.
Two defensive possessions later, Wingo again made safety CJ Heard miss on a tackle and turned what would have been a short gain into a first down. Two plays later on 2nd and 4, Heard missed another tackle behind the line of scrimmage after Texas running back Quintrevion Wisner took a handoff. The missed tackle once again proved costly. What could have been a 3rd and 7 turned into a first down run to midfield. Then on a 3rd and 2, it was Marlen Sewell who missed a tackle on DeAndre Moore Jr. at the 37-yard line. Moore Jr. took advantage and ran another nine yards after contact.
You get the point. Missed tackles were a problem for Vanderbilt, and Texas made the Commodores pay in a big way. Countless times in just the first quarter, plays that should have been stopped behind that line of scrimmage or shortly past the line of scrimmage turned into explosive plays that resulted in points on multiple different possessions for Texas.
That is not a recipe for winning. And that is also uncharacteristic to what Vanderbilt has been through its first eight games of the season. Sure, there have been plays where a Vanderbilt missed tackle resulted in an explosive play. But on Saturday, it was a frequent issue that the Commodores could not recover from.
“I got to watch the film, but it seemed to me like we had unblocked players to the point that we weren’t finishing the tackles. So that’s a fundamental technical thing we can work on. We can make that easier on people when we collapse space around the ball,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said.
But it was not just missed tackles that contributed to the loss, it was the lack of pressure that the Vanderbilt defensive line got on Arch Manning. In past weeks where Vanderbilt was able to get home to opposing quarterbacks, such was not the case Saturday afternoon against Manning.
It occurred in the first half, but it was especially glaring on Texas’ first offensive possession in the second half. On 3rd and 4 from their own 12-yard line, the Longhorns’ offensive line did its job blocking up front, providing a clean pocket for Manning to step up and complete a third down conversion.
Again, on 3rd and 9 from the Vanderbilt 28-yard line, the Vanderbilt defensive line could not get anywhere near Manning as he threw it to a wide open receiver for a third down conversion. Two plays later, Texas scored a touchdown to go up 31-10.
In a game like this where Vanderbilt knew it was going to be challenged up front on both sides of the ball, the one thing that could not happen was allowing the Texas offensive and defensive lines to push around Vanderbilt.
But for the majority of the game, that is what happened. Texas’ defense had six sacks on Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt did not sack Manning one time. In the end, that was a notable difference.
“We just didn’t win,” Lea said. “And so when you don’t win and you’re sending five or six, you’re creating enough time for the quarterback to operate and find an open receiver. That’s what they were able to do. I thought our performance defensively lacked detail. The worst part of it, to me, was just the way we played on our perimeter and our efforts on the ball.”
Despite the loss, not all is lost. The most important part moving forward is how Vanderbilt responds to a game where it gets hit in the face early and often. Vanderbilt responded well after the first loss of the season to Alabama. It is going to have to do it again if Vanderbilt is to make a run at a playoff berth.